A great- grandfather claims he was sent home from hospital in the middle of the night wearing only his pyjamas and slippers – after doctors missed that he was suffering a stroke.
Terry Kerr, 72, said he was told to phone for a taxi “on the way out” to take him 50 miles home at 1am, after he was rushed there by ambulance and made to wait more than seven hours to be seen.
It was his third attack in 19 days and each time he said he was told he had an inner ear problem – despite having the same deadly stroke symptoms seven years ago.
The pensioner, who gave talks about his type of posterior stroke to health professionals after his recovery in 2014, was so weak he was unable to stand and was suffering continual sickness and chest pains when he was rushed to hospital for the third time on September 19.
Claims of long waits in hospital
But on arrival he was forced to wait in an “ambulance queue” outside accident and emergency for more than three hours, as there were no beds available at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
He claims he waited another four-and-a-half hours – three in an A&E cubicle – to be seen, before a doctor asked him if he had enough money for a taxi home at 1am.
Mr Kerr, who stays with wife, Bing, 69, at their static caravan at Whitehills, near Banff, six months a year, said: “I got bloods taken and then the doctor came back and told me I was fine to go home.
“This was at 1am and I told her that I was staying in Banff, which is 50 miles away. She then asked if I had money with me to get home, so I repeated I was staying 50 miles away. Her reply was that there was a phone on the way out to phone for a taxi, then walked away.”
In the end, he had to wake up his 90-year-old mother, who lives near the hospital, to let him stay with her for the rest of the night.
Mr Kerr said: “I was discharged in my pyjamas and slippers and I was not given any assistance. I couldn’t find my way out and had to ask other people on the way and where the phone was to call a taxi.”
Eventually, after a face-to-face appointment with a GP two days later, he was sent for an MRI scan on September 24, which confirmed he had suffered a series of posterior cerebral strokes.
He said further tests also showed he had never had an inner ear problem.
Official complaint lodged to NHS Grampian
Mr Kerr, who has four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, was given a CT scan and angiogram, which examines the blood vessels, after his first attack on September 1, but the tests failed to pick up the anomaly.
He has now lodged an official complaint with NHS Grampian about his care and claims had he been given an MRI scan on his first visit it would have allowed him to be diagnosed correctly.
The retired driving instructor believes if this had been done he would not have gone on to suffer more attacks – and potentially put his life and the lives of others at risk.
He said: “The second time it happened I was getting out of the car after driving all the way to Inverness.
“You’re not supposed to drive for a month after having a stroke, but the doctor told me it wasn’t a stroke and it was an imbalance in my inner ear and I was discharged with nausea tablets.
“What would have happened if it had happened when I was driving?”
Mrs Kerr, a retired nurse added: “The worrying thing is, the first time he was in hospital in Aberdeen, the ward doctor said if it was up to him he would have kept him in, but his boss thought he was fit to go.
“I am so annoyed with myself now for not pushing and pushing. When he was being taken into the ambulance, I said to them ‘please remember the type of stroke he had doesn’t have the classic stroke symptoms’ and they [paramedics] did tell the hospital that, but it was just never followed up properly.”
Between September 1 and 19 he was rushed to hospital three times – twice to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and once to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.
Calls for greater awareness
The couple are now calling for greater awareness on the different types of strokes in a bid to prevent others being misdiagnosed.
Their anger is compounded as just after he suffered his initial stroke in 2014, at the request of stroke nurses in Aberdeen, he gave a series of talks to health professionals about this type of attack, which accounts for around 20% of strokes.
Mr Kerr said: “Doctors need to be aware of this type of stroke. It’s not that uncommon. But for it to have been missed by qualified professionals at least three times when I kept telling them I had the same symptoms in 2014 and it was in my notes, it’s ridiculous. The whole thing has been a complete cock-up.”
“And the thing is – how many more people are being misdiagnosed like this?”
According to several medical websites posterior strokes are missed between 30% and 60% of the time, with CT scans often failing to pick up small anomalies.
Mr Kerr stated in his letter to NHS Grampian that he feels “very let down”.
He wrote: “I strongly believe if I had been given an MRI on my first hospital admission on September 1, 2021, I would have been given the appropriate care and adjustment to my medication which, in turn, may have prevented the following two hospital admissions and a doctor having to come out to give me an injection to stop me being sick.
“I feel very let down by the series of mismanagement I have endured.”
The claims were put to NHS Grampian and it is understood it has received Mr Kerr’s letter of complaint.
But a spokesman said: “”We cannot comment on individual cases.”